Ectasy and Agony
by tobia
Summary: He's always there... if only she could realize that. After years of not seeing him, God visits Joan. Feedback needed!


_Ecstasy and Agony_

**Author's note: I finished another chapter in my hope-to-be novel so I rewarded myself by writing this. I tried to avoid blasphemy with one, so my apologies to the Almighty if I screwed up. I don't own any part of Joan of Arcadia, nor do I clam to. Enjoy!**

She lies there on the couch, passed out. Her hair fans out and falls off the edge, a dark brown cascade. He thinks she is beautiful in the way they all are beautiful, as things of potential and the work of His hands. And even now, even though she denies it with all of the half-heartedness the world, He can still see that potential, the type she once cared enough about to uncover.

It has been over a year since she has seen Him, since He waved and walked away and left only faith in the wake. She thinks He left forever, but He didn't, of course. He never has, never did, never will. But it is hard for them to see that, to see that there is something beyond vision, beyond the optic nerve He invented. So they see only two options: to turn away or to turn to something else, something their retinas can pick up. It always has been like that, going back to the Golden Calf, the Baals and the Asheron polls, and even Moses' snake; they always trust what they can see.

Nowadays, people turn away more than they turn around; rather than believing in something false, they like to say they believe in nothing at all. She would like to say she thinks that, too; she would like to believe she doesn't have to, but when you come right down it, it's not that way at all. She believes like glimpses in a mirror turned sideways; she turns around and sees nothing and then finds it easier to convince herself that the the reflections she saw were just a trick of light, nothing it all.

She's not a good liar, though, and she never has been. She tells herself each and every morning that she will forgot, that today will be the day she moves on, but it never is. She stares too long at strangers and cries too much, and when she dreams, it is often of bookstores, poetry, corduroy jackets, and stones falling in a pond, things she commands herself to forget.

It hurts Him to lose one of His creations, one of His believers. Sometimes, as her mother did, they come back, and sometime, as Ryan Hunter did, they never do. Ryan was a sad case but not a mistake; he was a victim, and not a blessing, of free will. They like to say that free will is bad, that free will is flaw in the design, but that's not quite it. It is the simple fact that they can turn away that makes the ones that chose to stay all the more miraculous because they really did decide to believe. The choices don't have to be good. Still, He hates to lose them; ninety nine ship and there's always the hundredth He tries to find.

Most people that take Ecstasy do it because they are bored or lost or addicted or can 't think of reason not to, but she is, as she always was, different. She did it because she missed seeing what others could not. It's one of those times when it is harder to Him to let them have their free will, when they do something stupid to get something that's already right in front them. He wished she could remember that she was always the one seeing Him, that He did not have to "appear" because He is always already there. Alas, she, the girl who had always before free willed her way toward faith had instead chose to forget all the days she saw "YaYa."

He moves toward her, hand outstretched, to feel her forehead. He is not doing this because she thinks she has a fever, for she already knows that she is burning up. As with all of them, he knows every beat of her heart, every push of her lungs, every blood vessel that moves through her veins. Back then, years ago, he saw the spirochete moving through her veins and knew she was about to hit a wall. He saw what she saw when what she saw wasn't quite real, and He helped see again, later, what was. They say He leaves them, but it isn't true. He is always there, even if he isn't always doing what they want Him to. It hurts Him to see them sick and suffering, it truly does, but when they leave, He wishes they would now that He is always waiting, that He exists beyond forever, beyond what they can know now and beyond what they can see.

Her friends are walking down the hall. In about two minutes, they will come in and see her. He hopes that they will call an ambulance, that the doctors will their jobs right, that she will not miss her Philosophy class tomorrow. But if not, he at least hopes that she will open her eyes and regain the willingness believe.

As the door knob begins to turn, she stirs beneath His hand. Her eyes open slightly, and she struggles to make sense of Him between the drugs and tiredness and the fervor. But then something catches her eye, a tuft of brown.

"YaYa," she murmurs in a voice so weak only He could hear it, " I'm sorry."

Blessed are those who do not see and yet still believe, but Thomas turned out to be a pretty good follower.

Believing, not seeing, is the most blessed part. But He still has high hopes for Joan Girardi.


End file.
